MRS AIMEE McPHERSON

Hokitika Guardian, 16 November 1929, Page 3

MRS AIMEE McPHERSON

LOVE AND A NEW TABERNACLE

SEATTLE, Otober 3. The £IO,OOO breach of promise suit brought bv the Rev. H, H. Clark against Mrs Minn is Kennedy, moilicr of Mrs Aiincu Semple McPherson, the American evangelist, has opened henbefore a jury composed of eight married women and ’four men. The two litigants sat glaring at each other while counsel for Mr Clark described the “whirlwind courtship” with which the widow wooed bis client, and Mrs Kennedy’s counsel retorted tliat Mr Clark’s charges were blackmail. Mr‘Clark, who is a middle-aged local preacher of Seattle, alleges that lie has suffered a broken heart and has sustained humiliation and disturbance of bis peace of mind. He- says that Mrs Kennedy made passionate love to him and promised to build him a tabernacle at Seattle like that of Mrs McPherson at Los Angeles, and to tit him out for evangelistic work. Mrs Kennedy says that it is a case of Mr Clark “biting the hand that fed him.” A VARIED CAREER. Mrs Kennedy’s daughter, Mrs Aimee McPherson, is the “hot gospeller” who three years ago caused ed a sensation by declaring that she bad been kidnapped by bandits while bathing in California, and held to ransom in Mexico. It was variously suggested that a love affair was involved, or that the affair was an “advertising stunt,” hut when she was charged with conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice she was acquitted. Her methods of conducting her religious meetings caused a good deal of talk, but the next big surprise was the impeachment last, March of Judge Charlos Hardy, of the Los Angeles Superior Court, on a charge of accepting £SOO from Mrs McPherson and her mother for helping them 'in connection with the conspiracy charge. Judge Hardy had 'been expelled from the American .Bar Association in the preceding January for accepting the money, but the State Senate Court at Sacramento acquitted him of charges of misdemeanours. Mrs McPherson opened at the A'bert Hall last October a series of evangelistic meetings in London and tho provinces which lasted about a 'month, after which she returned to Los Angeles.